the limping messenger

Gay Pride 2012, who is next to come out?  The Dutch army and the National Bank (DNB) are only a few official institutions that participate with a boat of their own in the yearly Canal Parade of Gay Pride Amsterdam. The museum and cultural sector is presented with their own boat (Amsterdam Museum | Bijbels Museum | De Nieuwe Kerk Amsterdam | EYE/Filmmuseum | FOAM | Hermitage Amsterdam | Het Concertgebouw | Het Nationale Ballet | Joods Historisch Museum | Koninklijk Concertgebouworkest | Museum Van Loon | Nationaal Historisch Museum | Nederlands Bureau voor Toerisme en Congressen | Nederlands Philharmonisch Orkest | Ons’ Lieve Heer op Solder | Rijksmuseum | Scheepvaartmuseum | Stedelijk Museum | Tassenmuseum Hendrikje | Tropenmuseum | Van Gogh Museum) a never ending list. Even the government has their own (contested) boat – though the prime minister – Rutte – choose to profile himself at a more straight mass party around the corner on the same day as the Canal Parade: ‘Dance Valley’ . A Dutch Hindu boat was a newcomer this year following the trend of Christian, Islam and Jewish gay representation, during an event that seems to aim at embracing ‘the whole’ of Dutch society. But certain key sectors of the Netherlands keep ‘missing the emancipation boat’, fail the institutionalised ‘coming out’: Dutch football business, the Dutch Royal House of Orange (and they have several nice boats ready to take part) and a boat of a section of this society that is thought to consist mainly of macho heteros, the Dutch Mafia. Here is an underworld that should be targeted, stimulated to ‘come out of their closets’. One can already enjoy the vision of a ‘parade of sails’ of hash and cocaine boats chaperoned by armoured speedboats, with the crew dressed in proper t-shirts and sunglassed criminals with their water-pistols doing ‘bang, bang, bang’.